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Chronology
This page summarises the evidence for the dating of each work of historical fiction. Click Show Contents for the list of works in chronological order. 2000 - 1000 BCE - Shifting Sands "In the winter of 1850, a great storm swept across Orkney. It uprooted the few stunted trees that the winds of other winters had allowed to grow. It hurled fishing-boats far up the beach, and smashed them like broken-backed sea-beasts on the rocks. It tore the roofs from cottages - and it stripped the binding grass from the great dune on Mainland, that the folk of those parts called Skara Brae, and set the sand dune moving. And there, as the sand drifted away, laid open to the sky for the first time in three or maybe four thousand years, were the remains of stone huts. Cold stone huts that had once made up a village, where people had lived and died and loved and hated, and told stories round the fire." Wikipedia suggests that the Skara Brae village was actually abandoned sometime between 3180-2500 BCE. 900 BCE - Warrior Scarlet From the Historical Note: "It is the story of a boy called Drem, who lived with his Tribe on what is now the South Downs, nine hundred years before the birth of Christ. His land and his people were not cut off from the world; the Baltic amber and blue Egyptian beads that the archaeologists find today in Bronze Age grave mounds show that clearly enough. But probably he never heard much of what went on in the world beyond his own hunting-runs; a world in which Troy had already fallen three hundred years ago, and Egypt was already past its greatest days, and a hollow among the hills by the ford of a rather muddy river had still more than a hundred years to wait before wild Latin herdsmen pitched their tents there and founded Rome." The story takes place over the course of seven years, following the protagonist from ages nine to sixteen. Bronze Age - The Chief's Daughter As a short story written for young children and set in prehistory, there is very little evidence for dating, except the presence of "A fine spear, its butt ending in a ball of enamelled bronze; an Irish spear!" Set in a coastal Welsh dun of turf banks surrounding a round hall, which protects a clan from Irish raiders in "skin-covered war-boats." The Welsh and Irish are said to speak different but not mutually unintelligible languages. The clan worhips a standing stone called the Black Mother. Nessan and Dara are possessed of a blue glass bracelet and an amber necklace, respectively. Other names: Laethrig, Istoreth. 415 - 404 BCE - The Flowers of Adonis Spans the later phase of the Peloponnesian War, from the departure of the Sicilian Expedition in 415 to the death of Alkibiades in 404 BCE. 414 BCE - The Truce of the Games (A Crown of Wild Olive) Set at the Olympiad the year after the revival of the Peloponnesian War in 415 BCE. 100 BCE - Sun Horse, Moon Horse Sutcliff specifies 100 BCE in the foreword. The principal events of the book are the creation of the Uffington White Horse and migration to Scotland of the Epidii, pushed by the Attribates, pushed in turn by the Romans. None of these things probably happened in 100 BCE. This book is a retconning of the Epidaii based on a book written in the 1960s, so the Epidii here don't closely resemble the Epid(a)ii of The Eagle of the Ninth (or The Changeling), who theoretically are their descendants, as the foreword acknowledges. Post-100 BCE - The Changeling "Long before the Epidii came following their white horse out of the sunrise, long before any of the Golden People, the little Dark Folk had been lords of the land. They were the People of the Hills, the hunters and the growers of corn. They were the builders of the great circle of standing stones on the high moors inland. But their slender weapons tipped with the dark blue flint had been no match for hard cutting bronze swords, and spears tipped with the magic grey fire-metal called Iron." Like The Chief's Daughter, a short story published for younger children. Written before Sun Horse, Moon Horse, and so perhaps before Sutcliff decided that the Epidii arrived in Scotland relatively late. (The "magic grey fire-metal" quote is closer to the treatment of iron in Warrior Scarlet than in'' Sun Horse, Moon Horse''.) Set among the Epidii in the Glen of the Chariot-Crossing, when they've been established there long enough for the chietain's stockade to have "long since taken root and become a blackthorn hedge." ? - 60 CE - Song for a Dark Queen 60 CE - Death of a City (The Capricorn Bracelet) 80 - 83 CE - Eagle's Egg 123 CE - Rome Builds a Wall (TCB) 126 - 129 CE - The Eagle of the Ninth c.130 CE - Swallows in the Spring ? 140s - 150s CE - Outcast 180s CE - The Mark of the Horse Lord 196 CE - Traprain Law (TCB) Second century CE - A Circlet of Oak Leaves The "Northern" (Antonine) Wall is still being held in this story and wasn't finished until about 154 CE, so it probably takes place somewhere between 154 and 164 CE or slightly later, after which point the Antonine Wall was largely abandoned. Trimontium, the location of some of the flashback action, was abandoned in 211 CE. 280 CE - Frontier Scout (TCB) 290s CE - The Silver Branch 340s CE - Frontier Wolf 383 CE - The Eagles Fly South (TCB) ? Roman Britain - The Bridge Builders 450 - c. 475 CE - The Lantern Bearers c. 430 CE - ? - Sword at Sunset c. 580s - 590s CE - Dawn Wind 600 CE - The Shining Company c. 880s - 890s - Sword Song c. 985 - 990 - Blood Feud 1090s - 1100s - The Shield Ring 1090s - 1106 Knight's Fee 1116-1127 - The Witch's Brat When the main character, Lovel, is seventeen, Prince William dies at sea in 1121, a little before Christmas. The book thus begins when Lovel is eleven, in October of 1116, and ends in autumn of 1127. The majority of the book takes place between 1123, when construction of St. Bartholomew's Hospital and the associated priory began, and 1127. Discrepancies from history: In the book, Rahere is still the king's minstrel when Lovel first meets him in 1119; the real Rahere was already listed as a canon of St. Paul's Cathedral in a record from 1115. Also, Sutcliff refers to the wreck of the White Ship and Prince William's death being "a little before Christmas" in 1121; the real wreck took place on November 25, 1120. 1137 - Duncan the Red (We Lived In Drumfyvie) 1139 - The Red Sheriff (WLID) 1160 - Midsummer Fair (WLID) 1314 - The Man Who Liked a Peaceful Life (WLID) 1360 - A Burgess Builds His Home (WLID) 1450 - The Pest Comes to Drumfyvie (WLID) 1513 - The Man-at-Arms (WLID) c. 1534-5 - The Armourer's House 1563 - A House With Glass Windows (WLID) ? The Queen Elizabeth Story c. 1590 Brother Dusty-Feet 1564 - 1618 Lady In Waiting 1642 - 1644 The Rider of the White Horse (Rider on a White Horse) 1640 - 1646 Simon 1648 - We Sign the Covenant (WLID) 1650 - God Be with You (WLID) 1684 - 1695 Bonnie Dundee 1785 - Drumfyvie Elects a Provost (WLID) 1807-1815 - Blood and Sand 1897 - The Jubilee Wing (WLID)